A call to regulate non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that seek to bring positive change to Africa by investing huge amounts of time and energy to help those in need has to be a good idea because, in the end, those they are trying to help will benefit. In a recent blog on this website, Marieme Jamme, a philanthropist and president of SpotOne Global Solutions Group, said it all.

But many questions remain unanswered. For example, who should regulate NGOs? Could government structures work best? Should the community members where the NGOs intend to work take the lead? Or should there be some sort of an NGO regulating other NGOs?

In Uganda, efforts have been made to protect an unsuspecting public. For example, an NGO must be licenced by the registrar of companies or the ministry of internal affairs to start operating. Documents are then passed to district authorities who give permission for the NGOs to function.

Community-based organisations are registered by the district development department and issued with certificates that are renewed annually on payment of a fee and presentation of a report. Copies of relevant documents are kept at the office of the resident district commissioner (RDC), who represents the president. Attempts have also been made to run NGO forums across the country to help advise member NGOs though not with any great success.

Safeguards found lacking

Yet despite these safeguards, many Ugandans continue to live in abject poverty, while certain purported "saviours" exploit the poor as the government looks on. In 2008, for example, hundreds of Ugandans lost billions of shillings to Dutch International, an NGO registered to help people living with HIV/Aids escape poverty with financial support.

The NGO collected money from the public, claiming it was teaching people how to save. To become a "member", individuals had to pay UShs 125,000 as a membership fee and then continue to make further deposits. Each deposit made would attract 30% interest after 30 working days, a much better rate than that offered by Ugandan banks.

During the first years of the scheme, members really did earn millions. Most built houses, paid school fees for their children and bought cars. Many people joined, including myself, but our good fortune was short-lived. The interest rate began to fall and dwindled to nothing, followed by the capital investment itself. Although certain government offices held documents permitting the NGO to operate, it did not intervene. In fact, the NGO's founders were only arrested after a public outcry and then released a few weeks later. Dutch International subsequently closed shop in 2008, having taken billions of shillings from the public

In Uganda at present, whether an NGO is providing scholarships or, like Amref, implementing a long-term development programme in Katine, there is no effective means of regulating an NGO's activities.

The methods used to monitor the Katine community partnership project, supported by Guardian readers, could probably serve as a template for monitoring other NGOs. And yet even here, while Amref, sub-county and district authorities, and Katine community members themselves are meant to monitor, internally and externally, how the project is implemented, issues have continued to emerge.

Examples include shoddy work during construction of certain school buildings, boreholes and shallow wells, some procurement processes, the NGO's insistence that it stick by decisions rejected by the beneficiaries, such as the planned installation of a solar-powered water pump at the Tiriri health centre, and a lack of transparency in regularly sharing budgets with local community members and other stakeholders.

In some NGOs, if a staff member acting as an internal monitor risks saying anything contrary to the interests of their employer, they can lose their job. So they choose to to serve their boss rather than the target beneficiaries or, at best, work as a desk officer writing "good" reports at the expense of the project's set objectives. In many cases, local and regional authorities are monitoring the same NGOs that provide the authorities with fuel to make field visits.

NGOs can remain unchecked

Members of communities benefiting from an NGO project would be the best monitors in such cases. But when they are not familiar with the process of hiring a contractor, with the terms of the contract or with the original budget - all key indicators when measuring achievements - and, above all, have no voice over any errant staff, NGOs can remain unchecked.

The Katine project has weaknesses of its own but its monitoring approach is much closer to the ideal model that ensures NGOs offer their best to those in need, a point my colleague, Richard Kavuma, makes in his recent blog on the subject.

The emphasis on "partnership" with the Katine community – through its leaders at sub-county and Soroti district level – has helped influence Amref's programmes, even if not as much as desired. Strong leadership from people like Stephen Ochola, the Soroti district chairman, his deputy Ediau Ewadu, and their teams has, for instance, helped persuad Amref to revise its plans and work into the programme more "tangible" items such as boreholes or classrooms and cut back on capacity-building seminars.

But in reality, local communities elsewhere have little influence on many NGOs' activities – although reports may tell you otherwise. And that is what makes Katine's trail-blazing attempts to introduce stricter monitoring all the more important.